Chamber and committees

The Health Technology Board for Scotland is currently working on a process to comment on all Final Appraisals from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). The NICE Appraisal on donepezil (Aricept), rivastigmine (Exelon) and galantamine (Reminyl) will be the first to go through this process in the spring.As an interim measure, the Scottish Executive has asked Drugs and Therapeutics Committees to review any advice they may have provided to their clinicians on the use of these treatments in Alzheimer's disease, taking into account the NICE advice.

These bodies consider information on complementary and alternative medicine where appropriate in formulating advice. However, very few studies of alternative therapies meet acceptable scientific methodological standards, and most are not therefore included as evidence. Where any such studies do meet the criteria, they will be considered along with other available evidence in arriving at the final advice.

Salaries for nurses and biomedical scientists are determined through separate machinery. As indicated in the reply to question S1W-12660, the Scottish Executive is committed to addressing the pay of all NHS staff, including laboratory staff in the context of the agenda for pay modernisation. As stated in the reply to question S1W-12661, following significant increases last year, the recent offer made to non-Pay Review Body staff would result in an increase of up to 16.7% for qualified MLSOs.

The Scottish Executive, via the Scottish Council for Postgraduate Medical and Dental Education (SCPMDE), provides funding for retainer schemes for both GPs and hospital doctors. These schemes assist in retaining doctors who are unable to work full time for whatever reason and in keeping them in touch with developments in clinical practice. SCPMDE also facilitate return to work courses for dentists and refresher courses for doctors who have taken career breaks in order to encourage them to return to the NHS.Our National Health: A Plan for Action, A Plan for Change made clear that all NHS employers will be required to meet or exceed best practice guidance on family friendly policies as part of the new Staff Governance Standard. This will address flexible working, childcare and career breaks.

The Scottish Executive currently provides financial assistance to Scottish Soft Fruit Growers Limited (SSFG) under the Marketing Development Scheme towards the cost of a marketing manager to assist them improve their marketing and commercial expertise. There are no plans to increase funding under this scheme.My officials are currently in discussion with SSFG regarding their application for recognition as a Producer Organisation, which is an essential pre-requisite to their submission of an Operational Programme under the EU Fruit and Vegetable Regime. An approved Operational Programme may contain measures aimed at improving the production and marketing performance of a Producer Organisation and programme expenditure is 50% EU grant aided.

The Scottish Infection Manual recommends that every NHS Trust should have a Trust Infection Control Committee and an Infection Control Team. It also states that the Chief Executive of every NHS Trust should be responsible for ensuring that effective arrangements for infection control are in place. This responsibility forms an important part of the clinical governance agenda and is monitored through the accountability review process.The Clinical Standards Board for Scotland has included in its generic standards a reference to the need, as part of the risk management process, to ensure that national standards on infection control in hospitals are met.

When a medicine receives a UK marketing authorisation, either from the UK Licensing Authority or from the European Medicines Evaluation Authority, it becomes prescribable on the NHS in Scotland unless it is added to Schedule 10, or in certain circumstances, Schedule 11 to the NHS (General Medical Services) (Scotland) Regulations 1995.Area Drugs and Therapeutics Committees provide health boards and health professionals with early advice on the clinical use of new medicines. In addition, some new medicines will be evaluated by the Health Technology Board for Scotland. The advice of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence is available to the NHS in Scotland.

Any patient who has been diagnosed as clinically dead by recognised and accepted brain stem death tests is eligible to become an organ donor.

These costs are a matter for individual NHS Trusts to determine in the light of staffing requirements.

The Project Director is currently developing a detailed service specification for the roll out of NHS24. Consideration of the issue of location for the service centres has yet to begin.